Sayanara Sucka!!

We're moving to St. Louis. Matt got a bad ass job at Monsanto. Yay! We're not going to live like students anymore. It looks like we'll be moving there the first week of March. Can't wait!!! 

Life's A Beach In Port Aransas

We are having the best time ever hear in Corpus Christi/Port Aransas! Matt and I arrived in Corpus Christi on Christmas Eve. Since my niece, Jennifer, lives in Corpus we thought it would be great to spend Christmas with her. To sweeten the deal even more, my brother (Jennifer's Dad) decided to bring his family from California to Texas to be with his daughter and us for the holiday. So we got to spend Christmas day with my brother, Eric, and his family. A day and a half later Matt's family met up with us at Jennifer's house in Corpus Christi. Then on the 27th we all (Eric's family and the Lingard's) headed to Port Aransas where John and Eric rented some beach condos. We are here till New Year's Day. 

So far we are having so much fun spending time together. We have done a lot of relaxing and playing on the beach. Ian can sit and play in the sand for hours. Also, Ian has been a lot more interested in using the potty since Nana Jeanne gave him some Bob the Builder underwear. In fact, for the first time ever he went poo poo on the potty. Matt and I were totally thrilled to say the least. The picture below shows Ian in the very moment of this historic act. 

We've made several purchases at the local kite shop here and spent tons of time playing with fun little flying toys and kites. Eric and his gang of course have all their kite gear and some really cool giant power kites we've been playing with. Today we walked around this really beautiful bird sanctuary on a marsh. Anyway, there's too much to tell. I couldn't choose just a few photos to share so I'm posting a slideshow of our trip thus far below. We have really enjoyed spending time with both our families and are sad to see the time coming to a close. This has been a great trip for us and we look forward to many more with our awesome families!!

"This is Halloween. This is Halloween."

Yay, Halloween! I love Halloween! I love Halloween because it's low stress/high sugar, no obligatory gifting/shopping frenzy, pure fun, scary movies, make believe, dress up, crisp Fall air, and macabre mayhem. And as "Michael" the angel says, "You can never have too much sugar." Well, maybe you can consume too much sugar, but you can NEVER have too much sweetness. And here's some sweetness. Our little Lily two days before Halloween when we carved our pumpkin.

She's so cute it hurts.

Ian and Daddy carved the coolest pumpkin ever. 

Ian wanted our pumpkin to have square eyes. Probably because he likes Sponge Bob Square Pants. 

On Halloween we went to our Ward Chili Cook off/Carnival/Trunk-or-treat. Here are Matt and Ian in a Cake Walk. Everybody was a winner!

I was a hippie, Lily was my flower (Give flowers, not fights). Ian was the best, most scary dragon ever.

He won at the duck pond game. Actually he won at every game he played, which makes me think the games may have been rigged.

Matt with Lily flower. 

We got through the games pretty fast and truck-or-treating didn't start for a while so we snuck out and trick-or-treated the neighborhood for a bit. Ian really got into it. He would say "Trick-or-treat! I'm a dragon! Rarr!!!" The people would laugh, give him candy, and ask, "How old are you?" To this he responded, "I'm Ian!"

Check out his loot! What a haul! Yay, I'm going to get another ten years of Trick-or-treating out of this deal! Woo hoo, parenthood! 

Actually, I really had a great time. It was so fun for me to enjoy this holiday with my little ones. By the end of the night we were all so tired, but not too tired for a few more houses on our street and one more walk through the cool haunted house on the corner. Yay! Only 362 days till the next Halloween. Can't wait!

Our Little Lily Flower

This last year has been so great. Our little Lily has added such joy to our home. Today she is one and I thought it appropriate to show a few photos from her first year with us. We are so grateful that she is with us. She is happy and fun and brings a softer dimension to our home with her squeals and laughter. In this photo she is only minutes old. She came three weeks early, in time for Halloween, and I couldn't have been happier to finally hold her in my arms.

These are her little feet at about six weeks old.

Here she is with Ian, her reluctant big brother. She is 4.5 months and he is almost 2 in this photo.

Here are the kids having fun at the neighborhood pool last May.

Lily still toothless at eight months.  

Lily and Ian this past July playing on their horsey with Daddy.

These last two photos were snapped within the last week. Her hair is getting longer and lighter as she has gotten older. It looks like her eyes are settling in on a beautiful hazel or steel gray color. Also, she has two bottom and four top teeth coming in. Little cutie!! We love her more than anything!

Pretty, pretty, tutu. She's almost walking. Pretty soon she'll be twirling everywhere. Our little Lily flower is such a delight. Happy birthday, little love!

Back In Time

Halloween is my most favorite holiday. We kicked it off by decorating our house around the first of October. Shortly thereafter we decorated our Potato Head Pirate Pumpkin. Ian helped while Lily was sleeping. He loved it so much that he played with it for about an hour or so after we had created it (Way worth the five quid I spent on the kit!). 

My birthday was Saturday, October, 11th and to celebrate we took the kids to a cool pumpkin patch and fall festival. It was so much fun to be together even though Ian whined a lot. 

I thought this was a cute shot of my kids' biscuits. 

This past Saturday was real low key for us. We lazed at home in the morning and then went to the mall in the afternoon so I could get some clothes for Lily. After stopping at the library, Matt drove us to his old elementary school. We stopped there and let the kids play on all the cool toys. They had the best time ever! It's great how entertained they are by free things like parks. Anyway, it was fun to see the beautiful neighborhood and school Matt lived in and attended as a child. It's kind of crazy that now we only live a few miles away from it. 

Here's Matt in front of his elementary Alma Mater.